Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, is reported to have a few gray hairs. Oh, no! She isn’t even quite thirty yet! Is this just a vicious rumor, or is the stress of her new lifestyle getting to the princess-to-be? The story comes from, says Daily Mail, “impeccably placed sources.”

Actually, gray hair while still in the twenties happens to lots of people. Possibly the reporters ought to be interviewing her parents, and the people who do their hair. But it does seem to be true that Kate Middleton has been “finding the odd grey hair (‘stress highlights’, her friends joke)” for quite some time. And with friends like that, you know you’re in trouble, but this sounds as if the situation has been going on, possibly for years.

So what does a modern young woman do, when gray hair strikes, at any age? Cover it up, of course, and sources close to Kate Middleton have already reported that she owes some of that fabulous gloss and shine in her locks to “having an organic vegetable-based dye and subtle low-lights applied during regular four-hour sessions at the Richard Ward Hair And Metrospa in Chelsea.” Four-hour sessions. Those could be stressful, in themselves.

“It is,” say those same friend, “of enormous ‘frustration’ to Kate that her appearance is so heavily analysed.” Probably it would be to anyone. There is nothing wrong in having a few gray hairs, and nothing wrong in covering them up, but such procedures deserve a little privacy. As the ad used to go: “Only her hairdresser knows for sure.”